Nyungwe Forest Chimpanzee tracking in Rwanda.

Rwandan chimpanzee tracking in the Nyungwe forest. For most people, the primary reason to visit Rwanda is to go gorilla trekking. The famed mountain gorillas are certainly a highlight, but there is much more to see and do in this hill area.

A lot of people are putting off visiting Rwanda because of the high price of gorilla permits; however, you can have just as amazing of an experience tracking chimpanzees in Nyungwe Forest for far less money.

Tourists may meet park rangers at one of three welcome centers in Nyungwe Forest: Uwinka, Kitabi, or Gisakura. They are asked to be at the reception as early as 4:30 in the morning, and by 5 in the morning, they are to be on their way to the trail head. The trekking party sends out scouts ahead of time to locate them and relay information to the ranger guides.

Even though visitors to Nyungwe Forest National Park only receive an hour-long encounter with chimpanzees, that time is enough to see the primates in all their natural habitat, including the traits and actions that make them so similar to humans (they share 98.7 percent of our DNA). Also, chimpanzees may be heard making ear-piercing screeches, rumbling hoots, and crashing into tree bark and buttresses.

Because of the vastness of the forest and the landscape, the habituated chimpanzee population in Nyungwe forest is larger than average, numbering about 60 individuals. The odds of seeing chimpanzees are low, but the group in Cyamudongo forest had the best luck due to the tiny size of the area covered, where there are only about 30 chimpanzees.

When walking with chimpanzees, you may expect to see them scurrying about in the treetops, which makes sightings more hurried and unpredictable than when traveling with mountain gorillas.

Cyamudongo is the starting point for the chimpanzee tracking area of Nyungwe Forest National Park, which is 4.5 hours away from Kigali by car. More than thirteen primate species, including more than five hundred chimpanzees, call this forest home. It is also the oldest montane forest in Africa.

The black-faced vervet monkeys and L’Hoest’s monkeys will make their sounds known as whoops and cackles as you make your way through the jungle.

Finding these chimpanzees is the biggest problem since they aren’t used to humans and are naturally timid. What’s more, they act quite human when they see visitors, which makes them curious and ready to interact.

Because they share 98% of the same DNA as humans, chimpanzees are fascinating to watch, particularly when they act in ways that we often associate with humans. We found the chimpanzee trekking in Nyungwe Forest to be a much more fascinating and thrilling event because of how quickly everything happens.

The denser woods also have less well-established pathways to traverse, which adds to the adventure of finding them on one’s own. Chimpanzee safaris to Rwanda’s Nyungwe forest are offered by Monumental Expeditions and Safaris